[Organizers] record-keeping for sliding scale admission?

[Don Veino]

Like Heitzso reported, I've successfully used a tally sheet broken into
range values to manage statistics on a sliding scale admission scheme in
the past (hint: make the most common expected price band amounts have the
larger tally area). I've moved on from that since.

For my weekly dance I didn't want to administer the complication of a true
sliding scale, yet wanted to try a similar concept to see how our community
might engage with our revenue issues. As a result we've gone to a "You Pick
A Price" scheme, described here: http://mondaycontras.
com/pages/you-pick-admission.php .

This has worked out extremely well, with self-selected admission payments
greatly skewed towards mid and higher amounts. Very few pay the least
stated amount or lower and several give us additional donations on top. The
net effect is we have been able to pay each of our performers something on
the order of $10-20 or more on average vs. our prior standard admission
scheme (while still enabling financially challenged folks to participate if
they can't volunteer).

I set up a cheap Android tablet with the Square POS (Point of Sale) app on
it to manage the admissions scheme. After a short initial training period
our door sitter volunteers have come to praise it and can process
in dancers quite quickly. You can see our "process manual" here:
http://mondaycontras.com/pages/volunteering/door-sitting-process.php . The
Square app itself is free and cash transactions incur no charge - credit
card transactions do pay a fee (we only offer cash sales publicly). The
reporting is quite good and you can manage cash drawers and see sales
reports by item.

Should you decide to go with Square and find the information I've supplied
to be helpful, I'd appreciate you signing up via one of the referral links
from the groups I'm working with (you and the selected group will each get
free credit card processing for 180 days/first $1000 of sales as a result):
Concord Scout House, Inc. https://squareup.com/i/SCOUTHOUSE (preferred,
greater use of credit cards)
Monday Contras Dance Committee https://squareup.com/i/MONCONTRAS

*Note: you must sign up by clicking on one of these links to obtain the
credit*. There is no way to gain the credit if you sign up in their
standard way starting at their regular web site or via the link included in
a retail reader package. They are very firm on this.

You do need at least Square's basic mag stripe reader to set up the app for
the first time. However, they will send one for free upon request after
sign up or will rebate $10 to cover a retail purchase (units available at
Staples, etc.).

Please give me a shout with any questions,
Don


On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 8:12 PM, Dana Dwinell-Yardley via Organizers <
organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Our dance in Montpelier is considering several models of raising
> admission, including going to a sliding scale admission instead of a fixed
> fee.
>
> If your dance does sliding scale, how do you keep good records on
> attendance? We would ideally like to track how many people paid what dollar
> amounts, as well as a total attendance figure and average payment.
>
> Also, does anyone do a tiered payment system ($8 low income, $10 regular,
> $12 dance supporter, or something like that)?
>
> If you used to charge a flat rate and now do sliding scale, has your
> average admission gone up or down?
>
> Thanks for helping us make a good decision! Our committee is meeting again
> on Oct 29, so having responses by then would be very helpful.
>
> Thanks,
> Dana
>
> --
> Dana Dwinell-Yardley
> graphic design & layout
> Montpelier, Vermont
> 802-505-6639 <(802)%20505-6639>
> danadwya at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Organizers mailing list
> Organizers at lists.sharedweight.net
> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net
>
>
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